


I'm not a liar, but I close my eyes a lot

by Seito



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Adult Reborn - Freeform, Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Introspection, Morality, Post-Canon, Ten Years Later, a different look at bamf!tsuna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-17 12:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21267362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seito/pseuds/Seito
Summary: It started with bang. A bullet casing falling to the ground; the clatter echoing off the walls.It started with Tsuna putting a bullet through the head of his enemy, unflinchingly. Blood spattered, flying, rolling down Tsuna's cheek. Brown eyes burn with orange fire, yet so, so, so cold.In another world, Reborn would have smiled.In this world, Rebornflinched.
Relationships: Reborn & Sawada Tsunayoshi
Comments: 54
Kudos: 814
Collections: 2019 KHR Winter Remix Fest Round 1: Prompt Fic





	I'm not a liar, but I close my eyes a lot

**Author's Note:**

> for the remix fest being hosted on the khrrarepairweek server :D  
My prompt was: Insecure!Character A comforted by character B. Character A is usually the confident one, and character B is usually the one more likely to be insecure

It started with bang. A bullet casing falling to the ground; the clatter echoing off the walls.

It started with Tsuna putting a bullet through the head of his enemy, unflinchingly. Blood spattered, flying, rolling down Tsuna's cheek. Brown eyes burn with orange fire, yet so, so, so cold.

In another world, Reborn would have smiled.

In this world, Reborn _flinched_.

It was a small pebble of realization, dropping into a pond of still water, stirring up waves the size of buildings that came crashing down and engulfing. Perhaps it was the light of the moon, the way Tsuna glowed, covered in blood and disdain written on his face. Perhaps it was the confidant way Tsuna held the gun to his enemy’s face and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Perhaps it was the smile at the end.

_‘Wrong, wrong, wrong,’_ Reborn’s mind screamed.

There was something horribly wrong with this picture.

“I won’t forgive this betrayal,” Tsuna said softly, speaking to the cooling corpse.

Reborn briefly closed his eyes. Forgive. A jolt of hysteria flooded his system.

Forgiveness.

Reborn looked at the scene before him with startling clarity. There was nothing new about this scene. This was not the first time Tsuna had fought an enemy and killed them in cold blood. This was not the first betrayal Tsuna had suffered. This was not the first time Tsuna had stood, coldly, unflinchingly, looking every bit like the mafia don Reborn (proudly, so, so, so, proudly) trained him to be.

This wasn’t the _child_ Reborn had met ten years ago.

Reborn was the best of the best. He had been in this game, staining his hands since he was ten. He had never known what a ‘normal’ family was like and he had never cared. He thrived off the darkness and the chaos of the underworld, living on the knife’s edge and always seeking a new thrill. Killing was nothing personal, just another job, a way to put food on the table. Remorse for his victims was fleeing and if nothing else, Reborn was very, very, very good at compartmentalizing.

Ten years ago, Reborn accepted the request to teach a young boy how to become a mafia don. He had been warned that the boy would be resistant to the idea, having grown up with a ‘normal’ life. Reborn accepted because it was Nono requesting it and because the pay was good.

It was all good fun. There was resistance, there was near misses, there was unforeseen complications but all in all Reborn was the best of the best and he did his damn job. At the end of the journey, he could say he produced a mafia don, exactly as Nono wanted, a strong and powerful leader that would lead Vongola to new heights.

Then there was Tsuna. Dame-Tsuna. Painfully weak, always crying, but untapped limitless potential. Reborn remembered looking at him and seeing, really seeing, the power buried deep down, tempered by the gentle heart. Dame-Tsuna who despite it all, wormed his way into Reborn’s heart. Reborn would never say it outloud but he came to respect Tsuna and the way Tsuna gave love freely and gently.

There had been a divider in Reborn’s head between the boy he was shaping into a bloodstained mafia don and Tsuna.

Tonight broke that divider.

Standing before Reborn was a boy that looked like Tsuna but also looked no different than the countless thousand others mafia dons in Italy.

What… what had Reborn done?

“Reborn?” Tsuna looked away from the corpse, over at him. The fresh blood was still rolling down his cheek. His brown eyes almost glowing orange, his Dying Will Flames just within reach.

“Hm?” Reborn asked in fake nonchalance, still trying to get a grip over his turbulent emotions.

“Is everything alright?” Tsuna asked. Concern bleeding through his voice, clashing horribly with the coldness that seem to radiant from him.

“Of course, Dame-Tsuna,” Reborn retorted. The insult rolled off his tongue with practiced ease.

“Don’t lie to me.” The words were soft. Gentle even. But the underlying _order_ had been absolute.

Such a far cry from the boy who used to flinch whenever Reborn so much as glared at him.

“It’s nothing,” Reborn said.

“Reborn,” Tsuna said. A blink and there was Tsuna, Dame-Tsuna, with an exasperated expression but concern in his eyes and the sudden shift between the two personas left Reborn reeling. Another blink and that boy was gone, the cold amusement that was becoming more familiar with every passing day replacing it.

What had Reborn _done_?

“Fine,” Tsuna said. “I won’t push. But you can tell me what’s bothering you, you know that right?”

How did someone love so fiercely and yet so coldly? There was a detachment in Tsuna’s words, as if he was going through the motions of something he knew was essential but couldn’t just connect with it as he used to--

The penny dropped and Reborn let loose a sharp hiss.

Hyper Dying Will Mode. Hyper Dying Will Mode pushed the user in a state of false calmness. Their body could be breaking apart and yet the user would remain calm and collected. How many times in the last decade had Reborn forced Tsuna into Hyper Dying Will Mode? How many times did Reborn force Tsuna to kill his emotions until Hyper Dying Will Mode was just a flick of willpower to activate? How many times had Reborn dragged Tsuna into the battlefield, stained his hands with blood and told him to accept this burden?

Reborn was a weaponsmith. He took people at their lowest, at their lamest, and built them up into killing machines, into leaders, into mafia dons. That was fine. It was the job. Even Dino was comfortable with killing when Reborn met him. That was Dino’s childhood, the family he was born in. He just needed the push, the polish to become that leader he needed to be.

But Tsuna, Tsuna had been unrefined. Tsuna had been a normal boy. Tsuna had been a stupid, kind boy who walked through fire for the people he cared about. Tsuna had been a boy who cried over every little thing, a boy who loved, a boy who wanted to help, a boy who wanted nothing more than someone to believe in him.

But now Tsuna was a mafia don. A man who people whispered about in the dark. A man who didn’t forgive betrayal. A man who killed without flinching. A man who didn’t mind being covered in blood.

And Reborn was the one who dragged him here.

He wasn’t supposed to get attached. It was a job. But Tsuna, Dame-Tsuna with his stupid gentle heart. Maybe it was love. Maybe it respect. Maybe it was just the siren call of a Sky. Reborn wasn’t supposed to get attached. Not this way.

(Tsuna, fourteen and facing the Man in the Iron Hat, facing _Kawahira_, facing Bermuda with a cool expression, promising to help Reborn, promising to help his friend, promising to break a curse that Reborn had given up on.)

(Reborn _**killed**_ that boy.)

“Reborn?” Tsuna asked, stepping over the cooling corpse, stepping over the blood stained carpet. There was concern, again, written all over his face. He looked more like the fourteen year old boy that Reborn had pledged himself to, but it was all wrong. So wrong.

“Are you happy?” Reborn asked, the words slipping out. He had no idea where he was going with this line of thought. “With your current life.”

Tsuna gave him a puzzled look. “Yes. Of course, I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You kill on a regular basis,” Reborn pointed out.

Tsuna cast a cold glare to the corpse in the room. “He put Hayato in danger with that information leak,” he said, words sharp, cutting deep.

Reborn… Reborn mourned. Because he made Tsuna into this man. Honed Tsuna into a weapon that never forgive the slight against his Guardians, chained the bonds between them, cultivated them.

No mafia don, no Sky, was worth anything without equally powerful Guardians.

But Reborn remembered the boy that cried for days after he had been forced to kill Byakuran. Byakuran stood on the edge of total multi-universal domination, stood as the threat against everyone Tsuna had ever loved and still Tsuna weeped for the man he had been forced to kill. Reborn remembered the bewildered questions, the endless nightmares, remembered the vow to never become someone who thought faking his death and hurting his friends with that knowledge was an acceptable plan.

(Another broken promise.)

“You didn’t forgive him,” Reborn said.

“Why should I?” Tsuna snapped. “He put Hayato in danger! If Shoichi hadn’t discovered his identity, Hayato would have walked into that trap, right over a bomb.”

True. Yes. All of that true. And all acceptable behavior of a Sky. Anyone who threatened the famiglia was dealt with, swiftly, harshly, less it be seen as a weakness.

It just wasn’t like _Tsuna_ to do that.

(Gods, what did Reborn do to that version of Tsuna?)

Tsuna scowled, letting loose a frustrated sound. It softened into a frown as he turned his attention back to Reborn.

“You think I should have forgiven him?” Tsuna asked, just a touch confused.

Reborn tilted his head, guilt clenching around his heart. How to explain? “No,” he said. “...No. Putting a bullet in his head was the… right choice.”

Tsuna’s brow furrowed. “Then why?”

“I wouldn’t have forgiven him,” Reborn said. He was, to borrow Colonnello’s words, an asshole. Reborn didn’t do forgiveness. It wasn’t in his nature. “But normally, you would have.”

Tsuna gave him a sharp look, clearly picking what Reborn was implying. “I haven’t been that naive boy in a long time, Reborn. I grew up.”

Yes. Tsuna grew up. People changed as they grew up. But how much of it was Reborn’s fault for throwing him into the bloodsoaked Underworld?

(It was a job. It was a _job_. Reborn was there to shape, mode and change. He would drag Nono’s heir into their world, kicking and screaming.)

(But at what cost?)

For all that he pretended to be perfect, Reborn wasn’t infallible. He was human. He made mistakes and this was probably his greatest mistake of all.

(What had he done to Tsuna?)

Tsuna frowned. “I don’t know what to tell you, Reborn,” Tsuna said softly, perhaps sensing the turmoil that churned in Reborn’s mind. “I am happy with my life. It wasn’t what I imagined it would be, true. But I have friends and family that I didn’t have when I was growing up. I have people who believe in me, who rely on me, who I can rely on, when before I didn’t have anyone.

“You gave me everything I wanted, Reborn. You _saw_ me. You saw the potential in a weak crybaby. You saw past Dame-Tsuna. I am happy with my life.” Tsuna looked at the corpse lying behind them before looking squarely Reborn in the eyes.

“If that is the price to pay, then I’m okay with bloodstained hands,” Tsuna said.

“There was a time you_ **weren’t**_.”

Reborn knew Tsuna meant those words as a comfort. Maybe, _maybe_, in another world, Reborn would have taken comfort in them. Maybe in another world, this would have been acceptable because yes Tsuna’s life is much better. But-

_‘You saw the potential in a weak crybaby.’ _

‘And I made you weaker for it,’ Reborn thought, grief squeezing tight. ‘I trampled over your gentle heart and turned you into a man that won’t lose any sleep tonight over killing someone.’

Reborn still remembered the plans. There were threats, against his mother, against the girl he liked to demand compliance. There were plans for isolation, for broken bones, for violence. There were tests for loyalty, for selecting the strongest Guardians, not necessarily compatible ones. There were bribes, positive reinforcement, a friendship, a figure to fill in the empty space that Nana and Iemitsu left. There were plans to crush a young boy into the finest powder and then create.

Reborn was a weaponsmith and Tsunayoshi was his finest, sharpest, deadliest weapon.

“I am sorry, Tsuna,” Reborn said.

Tsuna looked at him, alarmed. “You don’t do apologies,” he said, bewildered.

Reborn took off his fedora, bowing as deep as he could. “You may not see it, but I’ve done you a great disservice.”

Tsuna would never see it. How could he? Reborn had ensured that he never would. He took advantage of an attention-starved boy and made himself a person that Tsuna could always, always, always trust.

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Reborn,” Tsuna said, reaching out to place a hand on Reborn’s shoulder, pushing him back into an upright position. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

Reborn shut his eyes for a second, swallowing the guilt and grief. He would never be able to explain the careful nuances and Tsuna would never realize what was wrong with what Reborn had done to him.

What was done was done.

Reborn let it go, packing it all up again. There in the back of his mind, the voice of thirteen-year-old Tsuna rang.

_“I don’t want to be a mafia don, Reborn. I don’t want to be a killer.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I've always like the idea of Reborn feeling_ guilty_ over turning Tsuna into a mafia boss. Like, I've written a couple snippets that touch this before, but Reborn was there to _make_ a mafia boss. It never matter how unwilling or willing Tsuna was. Reborn was there to shape him, to make him, to stain Tsuna's hands in blood and shackle him with chains of crimes so heavy the only choice was to drown. 
> 
> Sure fiction. Sure shonen fiction, happy endings and power of friendships. But if khr had been a Seinen series, Reborn would have broken Tsuna's legs in chapter 1 and would have never taken no for an answer. As a harden hitman who left behind death in his wake, he wouldn't have flinched. But what if? What if he did flinch with guilt and regret and did he make the right choice? Thus this fic was born.
> 
> Please leave a review on your way out!


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